Three Nonprofit Institutions Will Share $86-Million Bequest; Other Donations

Several nonprofit institutions have received large donations:

• Three New England institutions will receive $86-million in a cash bequest from Henry Melville Fuller, of Manchester, N.H. Mr. Fuller, who died in August, was a stockbroker at Wood Walker & Company, in New York.

  The Currier Gallery of Art, in Manchester, will receive $43-million to create an endowment for acquisitions and operations. It will also receive Mr. Fuller’s collection of 19th-century American paintings, and a collection of 350 paperweights.

  Trinity College, in Hartford, Conn., where Mr. Fuller received a bachelor’s degree in English, will receive an unrestricted $39-million donation. A portion of the gift will fulfill a $1-million pledge that Mr. Fuller made in January to benefit the college’s library.

  The Manchester Historic Association will receive $4-million for its endowment.

• Herbert L. Block, an editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post who died early this month at age 91, has bequeathed $50.6-million to establish the Herb Block Foundation, in Washington.

  Mr. Block designated in his will that the foundation should help poor people, promote civil rights and freedom of expression, and support free and democratic government, among other causes. The foundation will also maintain and display a collection of his cartoons and other illustrations.

  In addition to creating the foundation, Mr. Block bequeathed a total of $1.2-million to 19 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, in New York; Handgun Control, in Washington; the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in New York; and the Salvation Army, in Washington.

• West Virginia University, in Morgantown, has received a bequest of $18.4-million from two sisters who attended the school. Gladys Gwendolyn Davis, who died in January, worked for the federal government in Washington before returning to Morgantown. Vivian Davis Michael, who died in 1998, was a stock-market investor and a social-studies teacher in Monongalia County, W.Va.

  Of their total donation, $16.2-million was earmarked for scholarships, professorships, and other programs at the agriculture school. The remainder will support the colleges of law and creative arts and the university’s libraries.

Other big gifts:

Annapolis Area Christian School (Md.): $2-million from an anonymous donor to help build a performing-arts center.

Florida Atlantic U. (Boca Raton): $10-million from Christine E. Lynn, chairman of the Lynn Insurance Group, in Boca Raton, Fla., for the nursing school.

Rollins College (Winter Park, Fla.): $10-million pledge from George Cornell, of Delray Beach, Fla., a retired investment banker who graduated from the college in 1935, to endow a chair for the college’s president. The fund will provide housing and office operating costs for the president, as well as a discretionary fund for special projects.

Southwest Florida Community Foundation (Fort Myers): $2.5-million bequest from Mary A. Shanley, of Fort Myers, Fla., a former office manager whose late husband was an engineer, to create a fund that will provide college scholarships to students who graduate from high schools in Lee, Charlotte, and Hendry Counties.

U. of Oregon Foundation (Corvallis): Land worth $1-million from Robert C. Wilson, of Corvallis, Ore., a retired contractor, for a construction-management graduate program in the engineering and business schools.

U. of Southern Florida (Tampa): $1.3-million from Joy McCann Daugherty, whose late husband, Hugh Culverhouse, owned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and her husband, Robert, the dean of the university’s medical school, for minority medical-school scholarships.

Wesleyan College (Macon, Ga.): $15-million challenge gift from several anonymous donors, for the college’s endowment.

Yale U. (New Haven, Conn.): $5-million from Roland W. Betts, chairman of Chelsea Piers Management, in New York, and his wife, Lois Phifer Betts, to renovate a campus building.